[Rd] Please make Pre-3.1 read.csv (type.convert) behavior available

[Tom Kraljevic]

Hi Dirk,


Thanks for taking the time to respond (both here and in other forums).

Most of what I wanted to share I put in a followup response to Duncan (please read
that thread if you’re interested).

I would like to comment on the last point you brought up, though, in case anyone else
finds it beneficial.

For data which is exchanged programmatically machine-to-machine, I was able to
use Java’s Double.toHexString() as a direct replacement for toString().  R is able
to read this lossless (but still text) format.  So this addresses some of the challenges
we have with this change.


Thanks,
Tom


On Apr 26, 2014, at 5:26 AM, Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian.org> wrote:

> 
> On 26 April 2014 at 07:28, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> | On 26/04/2014, 12:23 AM, Tom Kraljevic wrote:
> | >
> | > Hi,
> | >
> | > We at 0xdata use Java and R together, and the new behavior for read.csv has
> | > made R unable to read the output of Java’s Double.toString().
> | 
> | It may be less convenient, but it's certainly not "unable".  Use colClasses.
> | 
> | 
> | >
> | > This, needless to say, is disruptive for us.  (Actually, it was downright shocking.)
> | 
> | It wouldn't have been a shock if you had tested pre-release versions. 
> | Commercial users of R should be contributing to its development, and 
> | that's a really easy way to do so.
> 
> Seconded. For what it is worth, I made five pre-release available within
> Debian. Testing thses each was just an apt-get away.
> 
> In any event, you can also farm out the old behaviour to a (local or even
> CRAN) package that provides the old behaviour if your life depends upon it.
> 
> Or you could real serialization rather than relying on the crutch that is csv.
> 
> Dirk
> 
> -- 
> Dirk Eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org | http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com